Brian _'s List: Self Improvement Philosophies

• When you view your life as a series of different compartments, each with different rules, then life gets pretty complicated.
• It’s possible if all of those different areas of your life are congruent, if they all follow the same rules. Then thought and action are one, both pointing in the same direction.
• Instead of seeing each part of your life as independent, you begin to see them as interdependent.
• But a common way to treat problems is to try to isolate them.
• It’s often the case that the obvious cause of the problem isn’t the true source.
• Although it seems that each part of your life follows different rules, they all follow the same rules.
• An example of an unchanging rule is kindness.
• Another universal rule is being proactive, assuming personal responsibility for results and taking positive action.
• Cheating is another universal principle. No matter where you apply it, the long-term results are negative.
• So if you apply a universal principle in one area, either positively or negatively, it ripples into all other areas.
• Similarly, be kind to your body, and your increased positive energy will positively affect your relationships, your work, your finances, your emotions, etc. Be proactive about building a career you enjoy, and your passion will spread to every other area.
• If you violate a universal principle, it negatively impacts all areas of your life. If you follow a universal principle, it positively impacts all areas of your life. Universal principles don’t compartmentalize.
• So the key then is figuring out these universal principles and aligning your thoughts and actions with them. This is how you achieve congruence between all the different parts of your life.
• But I think all of these principles can be reduced to just one: to love. Not the passive squishy emotional feeling of love, but “to love” — the action verb.
• This verb translates into different specific actions for each area, but the underlying principle is the same. Depending on the situation, “to love” may mean to listen, to serve, to work, to relax, to touch, and so on.
• When you start injecting universal principles into every area of your life, alignment will gradually occur.

• Alignment comes down to working on these four questions until they all produce the same answer:

   
   
  • What do you want to do? (desire)
   
  • What can you do? (ability)
   
  • What should you do? (purpose)
   
  • What must you do? (need)
   
   

  When these four areas are aligned, motivation occurs automatically.
• I don’t have to separate supporting myself with a job and then having fun on the weekends and thinking about spirituality at other times. Work = play = love.
• Everything grows stronger: health, relationships, motivation, actions, results, etc.
• There are non-universal principles that apply just within their own domains (the rules of nutrition apply to your health but not to your work, for instance), but universal principles apply to all areas.
• If you have a deeply held belief that you hold sacred, you cannot violate it in any area of your life without suffering the consequences in all areas. You must be true to your inner self at all times.
• Desire becomes passion. Purpose becomes mission. Need becomes abundance. Ability becomes talent.

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• Try to learn to play a musical instrument when you have no talent at it. Attempt a small project that’s beyond your technical abilities. Ask for a job, promotion, or raise when you know the other person will say no. Ask for a date when you’re sure to get shot down cold. Cook a meal that’s beyond your cooking skills. Sign up to run in a 10K race when you can’t even run 1K, and show up and run half a block.
• It’s been said that if you want to increase your success rate, you should increase your failure rate. Success comes at least partially from your volume of attempts.
• If you want to sell more, make more sales calls. If you want more dates, ask more people out.
• Make failure your friend, and success will tag along as well.
• Just ask yourself, “What small thing can I fail at today?” Then go do it. Have some fun with it.

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• What if I were to ask you, “Are you doing your best?” and you honestly answer, “No, I’m not?”  Then you’ve got a problem.  You have unused potential that you’re just wasting.  You’re living below your capacity.
• If you don’t know what you’re capable of, then take a risk and find out — and by that I mean a risk for you, not for your peers.  Let the world tell you when you’ve gone too far.  Let it knock you down and say, “This is as far as I’m willing to let you go.”  Make sure the walls you hit are made of reinforced concrete and not of your imaginary self-doubt.  Don’t be such a wuss when it comes to risk-taking.  My standard for risk-taking is, “If it won’t land me in a prison or a coffin, it’s worth doing.”
• Aside from risk-taking, how else can you discover what your best is?  Follow the trail of better.  Raise your standards.  Can you perform today a little better than you did yesterday?  And can you do the same thing tomorrow and the next day?  Follow that trail, and you’ll come to discover just how incredible your best really is.  I guarantee you it’s way, way out there.  Your best is so far ahead of you that you can’t even see it yet.  It’s going to take you years before you think you’ve even gotten close to it.  And even when you think you’ve found it, you’ll discover it’s always one more step ahead of you.

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• The Law of Attraction simply says that you attract into your life whatever you think about.  Your dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest.
• Subjective reality is a belief system in which (1) there is only one consciousness, (2) you are that singular consciousness, and (3) everything and everyone in your reality is a projection of your thoughts.

• What happens when people put out conflicting intentions, like two people intending to get the same promotion when only one position is available?

   

  Since you’re the only intender, this is entirely an internal conflict — within YOU.  You’re holding the thought (the intention) for both people to want the same position.  But you’re also thinking (intending) that only one can get it.  So you’re intending competition.  This whole situation is your creation.  You believe in competition, so that’s what you manifest.
• Being the only intender in your reality places a huge responsibility on your shoulders.  You can give up control of your reality by thinking (intending) randomness and uncertainty, but you can never give up responsibility.  You’re the sole creator in this universe.  If you think about war, poverty, disease, etc., that’s exactly what you’ll manifest.  If you think about peace, love, and joy, you’ll manifest that too.  Your reality is exactly what you think it is.  Whenever you think about anything, you summon its manifestation.

• If I intend for my relationship to improve, but my spouse doesn’t seem to care, what will happen?

   

  This is another example of intending conflict.  You’re projecting one intention for your avatar and one for your spouse, so the actual unified intention is that of conflict.  Hence the result you experience, subject to the influence of your higher order beliefs, will be to experience conflict with your spouse.  If your thoughts are conflicted, your reality is conflicted.
• This is why assuming responsibility for your thoughts is so important.  If you want to see peace in the world, then intend peace for EVERYTHING in your reality.  If you want to see abundance in the world, then intend it for EVERYONE.  If you want to enjoy loving relationships, then intend loving relationships for ALL.  If you intend these only for your own avatar but not for others, then you’re intending conflict, division, and separation; consequently, that’s what you’ll experience.
• This entire reality is your creation.  Feel good about that.  Feel grateful for the richness of your world.  And then begin creating the reality you truly want by making decisions and holding intentions.  Think about what you desire, and withdraw your thoughts from what you don’t want.  The most natural, easiest way to do this is to pay attention to your emotions.  Thinking about your desires feels good, and thinking about what you don’t want makes you feel bad.  When you notice yourself feeling bad, you’ve caught yourself thinking about something you don’t want.  Turn your focus back towards what you do want, and your emotional state will improve rapidly.  As you do this repeatedly, you’ll begin to see your physical reality shift too, first in subtle ways and then in bigger leaps.

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• Prerequisites for Sex

   

  What prerequisites do we actually need to engage in sex? A willing partner is really all that’s required. If you have a willing partner, you can have sex.

   

  Serious rocket science here, eh?

   

  Just to be clear, let’s assume your body and your partner’s body are physically capable of having sex as well.

   

  All other rules, constraints, and requirements arise from social conditioning and are therefore unnecessary.

   

  You don’t need to be married or in a committed relationship.

   

  You don’t need to be dating.

   

  You don’t need to be in love.

   

  You don’t need an opposite-sex partner.

   

  You don’t need to be exclusive with your partner.

   

  Your partner doesn’t need to be exclusive with you.

   

  You don’t need to be programmed in multiple techniques.

   

  You don’t even need to have met the other person first.

   

  All you need is consent.

• How many extra rules do you have in your head about what’s required for you to have sex above and beyond the most basic?

   

  How are those rules working for you? Are you delighted with the results they’re producing?

   

  Do your rules make it easy for you to enjoy the sexual experiences you desire? Or are they simply getting in the way and blocking you?

   

  Do you realize that you have the freedom to choose the rules you want to keep as well as those you’d rather dump?

• Sexual Awareness

   

  Your personal experience of sexuality depends on the awareness you bring to it. If your thoughts are rooted in fear and scarcity, your sex life will reflect that. If your thoughts are centered in love and abundance, your sex life will reflect that as well.

   

  I’ve spent a lot of time this month hanging out in Las Vegas with polyamorous people. These are people who enjoy having sex with multiple partners quite often.

   

  I found it absolutely fascinating to learn from them. One conversation lasted nearly eight hours without a break, from 8:30pm until 4:15am. The time just flew by because I was so enthralled. I left their hotel feeling so energized that it was hard to fall asleep afterwards.

   

  Here are some of the common patterns I noticed about them:

   
   
  1. They believe sex is a giving act; inviting someone to have sex is like giving someone a special gift.
   
  2. They take pleasure in giving pleasure to their partners.
   
  3. They enjoy having sex and see it as a fun thing to do; sex is play.
   
  4. They easily attract willing partners who feel the same as they do.
   
  5. They embrace their sexuality and aren’t embarrassed by it; this makes you feel the same about your own sexuality in their presence.
   
  6. They accept themselves as they are, warts and all; they feel good about their bodies, regardless of how well they live up to society’s standards of physical beauty.
   
  7. They see themselves as being worthy of sexual abundance; some can offer specific reasons for this, like knowing they can create massive pleasure for their partners.
   
  8. They enjoy the variety of having sex with multiple partners; their partners enjoy it too.
   
  9. Everything is 100% consensual; no one is pressured to do anything they aren’t comfortable with.
   
  10. They’re pretty darned happy about their lives; they laughed a lot!

• Within the first few minutes of conversation with someone they just met, these people can express sexual intent, and a positive response is anticipated and received. They regard sex as a gift they can offer and share with others, and this causes others to respond in kind. They don’t broadcast creepy vibes because they aren’t trying to take anything from anyone.

   

  I noticed that such people also resist putting labels on their experiences. They didn’t quite resonate with polyamory or any other specific labels. Some of them invented their own labels; others preferred none at all. They allow their sex lives to flow dynamically instead of trying to force their experiences into a particular mold. This was especially eye-opening for me because I have a hard time coming up with good labels for what I’m doing. Now I can see that it’s folly to even try.
• What is your attitude toward sex? Do you see it as a fun gift to share with someone? Or do you secretly believe you’re doing something wrong, asking for something you don’t deserve?

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• Exposing Your Uniqueness
• Most people lead with their sameness and hide their uniqueness, so as to maximize their chance of being accepted by others. I prefer to share my uniqueness openly. As you can probably guess, this exposes me to criticism — sometimes a great deal of criticism. But I’d rather be judged for the man that I am than accepted as someone I pretend to be.

• Does it bother you to know that if you totally opened up and shared your real self with the world, warts and all, that you’d attract some criticism, judgment, and condemnation? Would it bother you to discover that some of the harshest judgment might come from the very friends and family you keep right now?

   

  I’ll be totally straight with you. If you open up and share your real self with the world, you will indeed be criticized for it. Some people will take issue with your very existence, as if you’re somehow a personal threat to them. But at the same time, you will invite new connections with the most honest, authentic, compatible people you could ever wish for. Believe me — that’s a very worthwhile trade off.

   

  When you show the world a false front, the world responds with false acceptance. When you show the world your true self, you’ll receive both harsh judgment as well as genuine acceptance.

   

  The former approach is worthless. The latter is absolutely awesome.

• Consider that we’re all puzzle pieces in the larger body of humanity. We connect well with certain people on one side but not on all sides. We have some compatibility but never perfect compatibility. This is true even in a long-term committed relationship.

   

  So the question is this: Should we hide our differences from each other and reveal only our commonalties, or should we expose our differences openly?

• What would be left? Most likely we’d have a pretty generic self-help site. There would still be some decent articles, but I think you’ll agree that something precious would be lost. The spirit of my work would be totally absent.

   

  However, if I actually ran a site like this, certain people might accept me more easily because they wouldn’t have as many reasons to reject me. They could more easily delude themselves into believing that we’re 100% compatible. But would they really like and accept me? Or would they merely accept the false image I projected?

   

  When I share a part of my life that doesn’t resonate with you, there’s no need to go kittywompus and become judgmental. Simply do the best you can to accept our differences. You see… it’s our differences, not our sameness, that stimulate us to learn and grow. If you and I weren’t different, we’d learn nothing from our interactions. There’s no point in exploring the creative work of someone who agrees with you on everything; that would be a complete waste of your time. Our differences fuel our growth.
• I’m especially turned on by people who follow non-mainstream paths that expose them to a lot of criticism. I’ve found that such people tend to be far more conscious than most, often because the harsh judgment they receive helps them grow stronger and more committed to doing what they believe is right. When you finally realize that it’s impossible to satisfy everyone, you stop worrying so much about the opinions of others, and you start tuning in and listening to yourself more and more. This can be a powerful catalyst for a very conscious life. Not always… but quite often.

• Accepting Your Imperfections

   

  One of the key turning points in my life happened when I crashed and burned after becoming addicted to shoplifting. By disappointing everyone who knew me, I stopped worrying about what other people thought about me. I reached the point where I just assumed everyone’s opinion of me was negative. I felt like I’d been rejected by virtually everyone and that there was no one in my life I could really trust. I had to learn to accept myself in order to make it through those dark times, even though no one else seemed willing to do so. Otherwise I’d have totally given up on my life.
• One of the key turning points in my life happened when I crashed and burned after becoming addicted to shoplifting. By disappointing everyone who knew me, I stopped worrying about what other people thought about me. I reached the point where I just assumed everyone’s opinion of me was negative. I felt like I’d been rejected by virtually everyone and that there was no one in my life I could really trust. I had to learn to accept myself in order to make it through those dark times, even though no one else seemed willing to do so. Otherwise I’d have totally given up on my life.
• Being judgmental of others and hiding your uniqueness go hand in hand. How can you go around judging others if you aren’t willing to put yourself on the line as well? If you expose yourself to daily criticism and judgment, this will teach you to be much more compassionate and non-judgmental toward others. You will see just how important it is to accept everyone as they are, including the parts you may not like.
• As I previously noted in the article Self-Acceptance vs. Personal Growth, it’s entirely possible to accept ourselves as we are and yet still push ourselves to learn and grow. So when I nudge you to grow in some way, please don’t interpret it to mean that I don’t accept you as you are. That simply isn’t true. I’m quite certain that you’re awesome.
• I was raised in a very judgmental environment. From my earliest memories, I remember being on the receiving end of a tremendous amount of criticism. Many times I felt I couldn’t do anything right. When I was around 4-5 years old, I would try my very best to be “good” and to avoid upsetting people. But over and over again, I kept failing. Then I’d be punished for it. As a result I began to hate myself. I felt like I was trapped in a game that was impossible to win. No matter which direction I turned, it always led to judgment and punishment. My only real defense at the time was to create a false shell around myself, one that would hopefully be satisfactory to others, while I was a totally different person on the inside. I felt no love toward anyone or anything.

• Being nonjudgmental is a step toward unconditional love. A good place to start on this path is to love and accept yourself. Stop beating yourself up for past mistakes. If you can’t love and accept yourself, you’ll have a hard time loving and accepting others, and vice versa.

   

  Learning to accept myself as I am was a long and difficult process. The first step, however, was to realize that it was essentially a choice. I didn’t need to meet any special conditions, satisfy any prerequisites, or gain anyone’s approval. I could simply decide that I would accept myself no matter what. In the long run, this decision has made me very happy.
• If you can learn to love and accept yourself completely, then it doesn’t matter if the whole world turns against you. Self-acceptance changes the way you look at people who are judgmental. Instead of seeing them as attacking you, you realize they’re battling with their own lack of self-acceptance. Deep down they wish they were free enough to be truly themselves.
• Authentic Connections

• If friends decide to dump me as a result of the personal choices I’ve made, then at best I only had their conditional love and acceptance, so our friendship was never that deep to begin with. Consequently, I don’t feel that anything of value was truly lost. All that happened was that some inauthentic connections were revealed and released. This creates a space for more authentic connections to be formed. It also means that my future relationships can be more strongly aligned with truth and love than my old relationships that didn’t survive.

   

  The road to misery is trying to satisfy other people’s expectations. Instead of trying to please others, decide to live congruently with your own ideals and values, and allow others the freedom to do the same. Some people will accuse you of being selfish for doing so, when in truth you’re performing one of the most important services this planet needs — demonstrating how to live honestly and authentically.
• If you cannot share your true self with the world, your life will be filled with shallow, inauthentic connections at best. The relationship you maintain with your inner self, when you’re all alone with your private thoughts, will be very different than what you experience with other people. Your personality will be split between your private persona and your public one. You will probably crave solitude more and more because at least when you’re alone, you’re free to put down your mask and be yourself, without risking the judgment of others.

• What would happen if you allowed your social self and your private self to become the same self? Why not allow your true self to shine as a beacon of openness and honesty?

   

  Yes, this will require facing more rejection and judgment from false friends. But it will also open the door to the most honest, authentic connections with other human beings you can imagine.
• Deep down we all want the same thing, don’t we? We all want to love and be loved. We would all love to be open and honest about ourselves and be accepted for who we really are. We’d all love to lower our shields and trust that we aren’t about to get phasered. Am I so different from you in this regard? I seriously doubt it.
• Imagine what a delightful world this would be if we were all open and honest with each other, while also being completely accepting and nonjudgmental with respect to our differences.

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• When people fail to move forward in the direction of their dreams, a common excuse is “I don’t know how.” They claim that a lack of know-how is the key factor holding them back in life.
• If you were to give those very same complainers a greater incentive to get moving, such as a million-dollar bribe for generating measurable results within 30 days, you’d find that their empty excuses and pointless whining are solidly blasted out of the water. Somehow the lack of knowledge is no longer a serious obstacle for them.
• with sufficient motivation, you’ll simply go out and acquire whatever knowledge you need.
• Claiming that you lack certain knowledge is an act of denying yourself permission to experience what you desire. It’s a way of blocking yourself from moving toward your goal.
• The physical and mental act of acquiring knowledge is really a projection of a deeper event that occurs within your consciousness. That event is the act of giving yourself permission to progress to a new “vibration,” to shift away from your current experience of reality and to graduate to a new experiential level.
• When you’re stuck at a certain level in your health, relationships, finances, career, spiritual growth, or personal habits, and you can’t seem to make any progress, take a moment to stop and look around. The universe knows you want to reach the next level. It’s not blocking you to frustrate you. You’re blocking yourself because deep down, you know you aren’t ready for the next level yet. You still have more lessons to acquire right where you are.

• Is the point of playing Pac-Man to get to the next level as quickly as you can? Not really. The point is to have fun.

   

  Is the point of life to immediately jump to a state of infinite health, wealth, relationship nirvana, and spiritual bliss? Of course not. The point is to enjoy the progression through various lessons that help you develop and expand your consciousness.

• If you stop resisting where you are, you’ll find that life becomes a beautiful thing, regardless of what level you’re currently experiencing. You can anticipate the next level while still having immense fun right where you are.

   

  If you want to level up, you have to acknowledge the ghosts on your level. They may seem like bullies, obstacles, or dangers, but in truth their purpose is to make you a better player and to provide you with an interesting experience.
• Ghosts help you discover new truths about yourself. They motivate you to get moving and pursue your goals. They make you stronger. When you face ghosts, you discover what kind of player you really are. That’s a priceless gift.
• To pinpoint the ghosts on your current level, ask yourself, “What parts of my reality am I currently resisting, and why? What parts of my reality do I refuse to fully accept?”
• If you’re broke and wanting to experience financial abundance, have you learned the key lessons of being broke? Are you feeling immensely grateful for everything that financial scarcity has taught you? Or are you still running away from your ghosts?
• If you’re single and wanting to experience a relationship, have you learned the lessons of being single at this time in your life? Do you feel happy and grateful when you’re alone because of all the beautiful gifts you’ve gained from it? Or are you railing against it, thereby preventing yourself from moving on?
• If you’re struggling to figure out your life purpose and/or to choose a career direction, have you learned the lessons of being directionless? Do you feel grateful for the freedom and limitlessness of options you have right now? Or do you still resist your current experience of reality?

• You can’t move forward in life by hating where you are.

   

  Whenever you resist your reality, you deny your own creative power. You make yourself powerless to progress.
• When a block becomes a problem is when you feel stunted and trapped in your reality. You anxiously crave different experiences, and you’re bored or frustrated with the doldrums of your current level. That’s a signal that you need to turn toward those ghosts and face them head-on. It’s time to build your strength and move forward.
• Long-term stuckness boils down to running from fear — fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection. We all run from these fears at times. We’re only human. Lots of stuff scares us.
• Imagine the Biblical God visiting this planet and saying, “Adam and Eve? Heaven and Earth? Nope, wasn’t me!” That’s what we do when we resist some aspect of our current reality.
• Look around at your reality for a moment, take a deep breath, stick your chest out, and say, “Yup… that was ME!” Take credit for all that you’ve created, even if you don’t think you deserve it. When you claim credit for what you’ve already created, you simultaneously summon the power to create something new.
• Your best bet is to assume that you’ve created everything in your reality — and for good reason. With respect to everything in your reality that you currently resist, say to yourself, “Okay, let’s assume I did create this. Now why would I do something like that? What could this possibly do for me?”
• Look for the hidden benefit, lesson, or message behind everything in your reality that bugs you.
• Learn to embrace the Truth. Learn to connect with what you Love. Learn to channel your creative Power fully. Your problems are there to help you progressively train up your alignment with these principles.

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• The most common wrong strategy is this: You assume that if you’re going to get up earlier, you’d better go to bed earlier.
• It seems there are two main schools of thought about sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same times every day.
• The second school says you should listen to your body’s needs and go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up.
• Through trial and error, I found out for myself that both of these schools are suboptimal sleep patterns. Both of them are wrong if you care about productivity. Here’s why:
• If you sleep set hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. If it’s taking you more than five minutes to fall asleep each night, you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake and not being asleep. Another problem is that you’re assuming you need the same number of hours of sleep every night, which is a false assumption. Your sleep needs vary from day to day.
• If you sleep based on what your body tells you, you’ll probably be sleeping more than you need — in many cases a lot more, like 10-15 hours more per week (the equivalent of a full waking day).
• The solution was to go to bed when I’m sleepy (and only when I’m sleepy) and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time (7 days per week). So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5am), but I go to bed at different times every night.

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• Too often we get stuck in inaction — the quagmire of doubt and perfectionism and distractions and planning that stops us from moving forward.
• 1. Don’t overthink. Too much thinking often results in getting stuck, in going in circles. Some thinking is good — it’s good to have a clear picture of where you’re going or why you’re doing this — but don’t get stuck thinking. Just do.
• 2. Just start. All the planning in the world will get you nowhere. You need to take that first step, no matter how small or how shaky. My rule for motivating myself to run is: Just lace up your shoes and get out the door. The rest takes care of itself.
• 3. Forget perfection. Perfectionism is the enemy of action. Kill it, immediately. You can’t let perfect stop you from doing. You can turn a bad draft into a good one, but you can’t turn no draft into a good draft. So get going.
• 4. Don’t mistake motion for action. A common mistake. A fury of activity doesn’t mean you’re doing anything. When you find yourself moving too quickly, doing too many things at once, this is a good reminder to stop. Slow down. Focus.
• 5. Focus on the important actions. Clear the distractions. Pick the one most important thing you must do today, and focus on that. Exclusively. When you’re done with that, repeat the process.
• 6. Move slowly, consciously. Be deliberate. Action doesn’t need to be done fast. In fact, that often leads to mistakes, and while perfection isn’t at all necessary, neither is making a ridiculous amount of mistakes that could be avoided with a bit of consciousness.
• 7. Take small steps. Biting off more than you can chew will kill the action. Maybe because of choking, I dunno. But small steps always works. Little tiny blows that will eventually break down that mountain. And each step is a victory, that will compel you to further victories.
• 8. Negative thinking gets you nowhere. Seriously, stop doing that. Self doubt? The urge to quit? Telling yourself that it’s OK to be distracted and that you can always get to it later? Squash those thoughts. Well, OK, you can be distracted for a little bit, but you get the idea. Positive thinking, as corny as it sounds, really works. It’s self-talk, and what we tell ourselves has a funny habit of turning into reality.
• 9. Meetings aren’t action. This is a common mistake in management. They hold meetings to get things done. Meetings, unfortunately, almost always get in the way of actual doing. Stop holding those meetings!
• 10. Talking (usually) isn’t action. Well, unless the action you need to take is a presentation or speech or something. Or you’re a television broadcaster. But usually, talking is just talking. Communication is necessary, but don’t mistake it for actual action.
• 11. Planning isn’t action. Sure, you need to plan. Do it, so you’re clear about what you’re doing. Just do it quickly, and get to the actual action as quickly as you can.
• 12. Reading about it isn’t action. You’re reading an article about action. Ironic, I know. But let this be the last one. Now get to work!
• 13. Sometimes, inaction is better. This might be the most ironic thing on the list, but really, if you find yourself spinning your wheels, or you find you’re doing more harm than good, rethink whether the action is even necessary. Or better yet, do this from the beginning — is it necessary? Only do the action if it is.
• Talk doesn’t cook rice.” - Chinese Proverb

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• At some point, we must decide to stop trying and deliberately choose not to fail; simply choose to succeed.
• You don’t try to lift yourself back up, you don’t have a choice, you simply do.
• you don’t try to make it succeed, you will it to succeed. The greater the probability of succeeding is usually directly related to how little of a safety net is in place.
• What this comes down to ultimately is no margin of uncertainty. You simply decide that it’s going to happen.
• Sometimes it will be highly beneficial for you to fail, because often it isn’t until you fail enough times that you actually succeed. But even then, you can deliberately choose to fail, instead of avoiding it in fear of embarrassment or injury to your ego.
• When you decide that the outcome you want is inevitable, your mind and the universe tend to agree. When you’re internally wavering and unsure, the world will undoubtedly agree.
• When you know there is no other alternative, you remove all the mental weight of indecision. You know that what you want isn’t a probability, it’s an inevitability. It’s just a matter of time.

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